


The Archer(s)

by bitboozy



Series: Domesticated [5]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, New Relationship, Romance, at last a tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 08:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20094400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitboozy/pseuds/bitboozy
Summary: Alec starts to seethe again, pacing the kitchen, and then realizes he has no idea why he’s mad at her.





	The Archer(s)

**Author's Note:**

> Where does all of this keep coming from? I DON'T KNOW.

Today is their three-week anniversary. Not an especially auspicious accomplishment, but for two people who wasted three years apart, it’s quite something. Certainly worthy of celebration. Trouble is, today, they can’t stand to be anywhere near each other.

They avoid each other all day at work. Refuse to go out together on calls. He keeps his office blinds closed so neither of them can even be tempted to look at each other.

He spends the day shouting at anyone who enters his orbit. She spends the day ignoring them, barely offering so much as a grunt in response to anything asked of her.

She knocks off early, at 5pm, unwilling to stay late no matter how much work there is to do. She picks up the boys, and they go for pizza. Fred insists upon sitting in her lap at the table, and her smile returns.

He reluctantly leaves the office at 6pm, realizing there is not really so much for him to do if she’s not there. Daisy has already made herself a simple supper, and is eating it on the couch while catching up on _Orange is the New Black_. Without being asked, she promises she’ll get back to her homework after this episode, and his smile returns too.

In the kitchen, he sits at the table with a cuppa and stares at his mobile, waiting for her to text him.

Ellie puts Fred to bed at 7:30, then stands in the hallway staring at her mobile, waiting for him to text her.

Alec starts to seethe again, pacing the kitchen, and then realizes he has no idea why he’s mad at her.

She sits on the edge of her bed, scrolling through options on Netflix on her tv, then flops back on the mattress. How can she already miss him so much?

Daisy brings her plate into the kitchen. “No Ellie tonight?” She asks, innocently. He grunts unintelligibly. “Had a row?” Again, he says nothing.

Tom knocks on her open bedroom door before entering. It took her years to train him to do that. “You look bored,” he says. He’s bewildered, because his mother has never had a spare moment to breathe in his life. “Very busy,” she insists, picking up the remote again and staring at the tv.

“Call her,” Daisy suggests, with the hopeful openness of a teenager who believes in love. “And say what,” he grumbles, not looking at her. “Whatever you want!”

“We could watch a movie,” Tom offers. She looks at him, and it’s clear he’s close to regretting those words ever coming out of his mouth. “You and me?” She asks. “Yeah,” he shrugs.

“Was it so bad?” Daisy asks him, sitting down at the kitchen table while he leans against the counter, full of angst. She knows this look – it’s the look of all angsty teenage boys. “Whatever you fought about?” Alec shrugs. “So call her,” Daisy says again.

Tom joins her on the bed. They lay side by side watching a Marvel film that Ellie couldn’t care less about and Tom’s seen ten times already. But it still counts as quality time, and it pleases her to no end.

“Something I’ve noticed,” Daisy says cautiously, guiding him to the chair next to hers. “And don’t get yourself twisted over it. When you have something to say, and you’re afraid – sorry, but yes – to say it, you kind of…lash out a bit.” Alec’s eyes go wide at this astute observation from his own child. “So maybe that’s it?”

Tom shifts a bit next to her. “Surprised you don’t have to work to do tonight. You know, with DI Hardy.” They still haven’t told _her _children about their relationship, and the guilt shoots through her veins briefly. “Usually you’ve got…you know, stuff.” Ellie can think of no reply other than “not tonight.”

Ellie’s phone vibrates beside her. It’s him, finally.

**All right? **

She rolls her eyes and tosses it back on the bed. No way _that _merits a response. After a few minutes, there’s another.

**Fine then. **

“Who’s that,” Tom asks, only vaguely interested.

“Just someone from work,” she replies, and the heartlessness of it makes her own blood run cold.

Ten minutes later, they can faintly hear a knock on the front door from upstairs. Tom sits up. “I’ll get it.”

“No, no,” Ellie insists, getting up. “It’ll just be work, you stay here.”

The film is ramping up into Tom’s favorite action scene so he’s perfectly content to stay where he is. Ellie exits the room and heads downstairs. She can _feel_ him on the other side of the door before she opens it. He’s standing there in his overcoat, looking utterly miserable. Then he holds up a KitKat bar.

She doesn’t smile, but she does step aside to let him in, and closes the door behind him. He stands there awkwardly in the foyer, and she snatches the KitKat out of his hand. “What do you want.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He gestures to the candy bar. “A truce.”

“No,” she says, but it’s almost coy. Coy and stubborn as hell. “It’s not like before, Alec. Not like when we were just partners and sometimes maybe even friends. Where you could act like a bloody caveman taking your bad moods out on me, then show up with a scotch egg in lieu of an apology. That’s not where we are now." 

He sighs. “I know. I think that’s the whole…I think that’s _why _I…”

“What. Why you _what_.” She has her hands on her hips now and he can see she means business..

“I’m better with you than with anyone else but it’s still sometimes hard for me to…_say _things. The important things,” he explains, burying his hands in his pockets and avoiding her eyes.

“What things?” She counters, still on the offense. “_Good morning, Ellie_? _You feel okay, Ellie_? _Happy three-week bloody anniversary, Ellie_?”

He looks her square in the face. “I love you, Ellie.”

She’s entirely paralyzed by the sound of the words, her mouth open. A faint “what,” barely squeaks out.

“I, uh.” He clears his throat. “Been wanting to tell you for a while now – no, _needing _to tell you for a while now, but not wanting to…throw things off-balance, and I think the longer I felt I had to _keep _from saying it, the more I thought I might explode. And then I, uh, did. I guess.”

She exhales heavily as if she’s expelling a whole day’s worth of anger along with her breath. Still she doesn’t speak for a moment and he feels like his bones might crumble inside him.

“So, I’ll uh, just…leave you to it, I s’pose,” he says, gesturing again at the KitKat bar and heading back toward the door.

“Say it again.”

He stops and turns around, now he can see a glimmer in her eyes. “Say it again.”

“I love you, Ellie.”

It’s another beat before she speaks, a tiniest of smiles playing upon her lips. “God, you’re such a wanker,” she mutters, throwing her arms around his neck.

He’s knocked back a bit, but recovers quickly enough to circle her waist with her arms and pull her as close as he can get her. She kisses him fiercely at first, exorcizing the anger and frustration of the day, and then again more softly. “I love you too, you knob.”

Instinctively he’s known it but he never let himself believe it.

He pushes her back against the door, deepening the kiss like he’s trying to meld their bodies together irrevocably. When at last they’re desperate for air, he moves his mouth to her throat and down to her collarbone, his hands reaching underneath the hem of her soft cotton t-shirt. “I love you so much,” he says again, now enjoying the resplendent freedom of the words.

Her fingers hook onto his back belt loops to draw him tightly against her so she can feel how much he wants her and it drives her to the most desperate whimper.

And then. “MUM! You’ll miss the big fight scene!”

Alec peels himself back from her, breathing heavily. “Sorry,” he gasps out. “Forgot – “

She nods. “Come back ‘round in an hour? He’ll be asleep with his bloody headphones on then.”

“I’ll just, uh….” He nods to himself, trying to regain some equilibrium. “Yeah. An hour.”

She straightens herself out, reaching out to feel the hot blush of her cheeks, then takes a deep breath. He watches her look all hot and bothered and smiles. “I love you,” he says again, relishing it, and kissing her.

“I love you,” she responds, with one last kiss.

Then she pushes him out the door and jogs back up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Watch this,” Tom says, pointing to the tv. Thank god he doesn’t even look at her. “Black Widow is so cool.”

Ellie climbs back onto the bed beside him, lying back against the pillow, and doesn’t watch a second of the remaining film. She knows Alec is just sitting in his bloody car, staring at the clock. Her phone vibrates.

**One last thing.**

And then again.

**I still love you.**

She blushes and giggles like a schoolgirl, causing Tom to frown at her.

She types back. **And in an hour you can show me just how much.**

Buzz. **Good thing Tom’ll be wearing earphones.**

She melts into the bed with a sigh, her mind racing.

Tom says, “Mum, you’re missing it.”

But she knows the _real _show will come later.

***


End file.
